Firstly you can feel a bit of connection with someone if some of their picks overlap with your own, like you share the same musical heritages and influences.
Secondly over the years I have been turned on to some really great bands / albums just by being intrigued over someone else’s choice especially where it’s an artist I’m not familiar with.
It’s also great when someone throws in a bit of a curve ball and name checks someone you really were not expecting.
It’s always difficult to narrow it down to an all-time top ten and whenever I’ve been asked to name mine it always tends to be a snapshot of that moment in time, a concoction of favourite all time albums mixed with current listening and for me that’s how it should be. An amorphous melting pot that grows and expands with our own musical horizons and changes year by year, week by week, hour by hour! I thought it would be interesting to hear what is shaping others audio landscapes and so I’m going to ask some friends and musicians to contribute their current top ten’s (albums / songs / whatever) with a brief note of what makes these picks so important or influential to them.
So to kick things off here is mine. No particular order, not cast in stone and definitely only valid for the next seven days.
The Clash -London Calling.
More than 33 years after it’s release it’s still an album I return to continually. Causing many a furrowed brow upon release, including my own on about half the tracks, it’s one of those rare albums that for years I would hear something new on each listen. I went from liking parts of it on first listen back in 1979 to it being ingrained within my very existence by the end of the 90’s, playing it virtually every day. From the grand opening of the title track, through the grubby rock’n’roll cover of Brand New Cadilliac, via the laid back reggae grooves of Revolution Rock and Lover’s Rock, pseudo jazz of Jiimmy Jazz and motown tinged Train In Vain it snaked it’s way across the musical landscape like a predator on the prowl. And I haven’t even mentioned some of favourite tracks such as Rudie Can’t Fail and Death or Glory. This record expanded the punk template like no band had done before and should be included on the school’s curriculum to ensure everyone gets an opportunity to listen and love like myself. Possibly the greatest album of all time? I think so.
Hefner – The Fidelity Wars.
My brother gave me a tape of this not long after it’s release, (I wouldn’t like to guess how many great albums and bands he has turned me on to over the years). I’d only heard one Hefner song previously and hadn’t been overly impressed but when I put this in my Walkman on the bus journey to work one morning I was hooked. I’d never really heard anyone sing songs so brutally honest and beautifully crudely about love before. It was songs about smoking and drinking and sex on the kitchen floor all told in a language that painted such vivid pictures it was like I was there, guiltily observing. Even though these were not my experiences I felt I could associate with them all. I went on to get as much stuff as I could by Hefner and still continue to buy Darren Hayman’s albums all of which are still as lyrically entertaining but the Fidelity Wars still has a special place in my heart.
The Pixies – Surfer Rosa.
I can vividly remember hearing this for the first time. It was winter 89. Newly married. Walking to catch the bus to work early one dark cold morning. Coat, scarf and gloves to protect against the bitter weather. Tape inserted (thanks again Ian) Walkman cranked up to max. Bone Machine thundered out. Oh my god. Rewind. Pressed play again, only this time listened to the whole album before I got to work. This is what I had been waiting for. The Pixies hadn’t quite broken in to the big time yet and grunge was still a year or so from being invented but for now I had the Pixies to myself.
Husker Du - Candy Apple Grey
Another recommendation from Ian, this was the first Husker Du album that I really took to heart. They'd always had the melodies but this time the frenetic pace was often toned down which just seemed to give the tunes and lyrics more time to bloom. There was heartache and angst aplenty which I must be a sucker for and this still remains my favourite Husker Du album.
Siouxsie & The Banshees – The Scream.
This is a great example of picking an album from current listening. Seen the Banshees many times over the year and with possibly one or two exceptions I have loved everything they have put out. My favourite Banshees album changes frequently and so I have gone back to where it all began. The Screams begins slowly, but not plodding, more like some large feline stalking, waiting, with Siouxsie wailing over an otherwise two minute instrumental intro. Before there is time to draw breath the Banshees pounce, lurching forward delivering a stark, brutal but simultaneously beautiful sound and laying down a blue print for the post punk generation. The Scream (aptly titled) is a glorious noise, unlike anything else I had heard at the time and the closing epic Switch sealed my lifelong love affair with the Banshees.
Leatherface - Stormy Petrol
I’ve chosen this over the potentially more obvious Mush as it was Stormy Petrol that reignited my love of this band and it is every bit as good. We had a chat with Dickie Hammond a few years ago at the Rebellion Festival and he excitedly told us that he was working on a new Leatherface album with Frankie Stubbs and the result was a brilliant collection of songs that sounded like Thin Lizzy. And you can kind of see the comparison at times, it was a band who’s sound had no doubt grown but lost none of the earlier vitality. With Dickie’s superb guitar work (a true, mainly unrecognised punk rock legend) and Frankie’s excellent lyrical dexterity the album ingrained itself it to our skulls like a night out with the Driller Killer. I was lucky enough to catch them at the Vic Inn, Derby a couple of times during 2011 for a couple of the best gigs I’d seen in a long time and with no news of any further activity at the moment they are a band sorely missed from the punk rock live scene so I’m off to play Stormy Petrol again!
The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls In America
This album received a load of hype when
released but it kind of passed me by and it wasn’t until around the release of
it’s follow up that I got round to checking it out. I’m a sucker for songs that paint a picture
and tell little stories and this album has that in abundance. Sometimes I’m not really sure what’s going on
in the lyrics but for me that’s part of the appeal, that ambiguity. The opening line of Chips Ahoy just drags me
in and wanting more “She put $900 on the fifth horse in the sixth race,
I think its name is "chips ahoy!", it came in six lengths ahead, we
spent the whole next week getting high”
and then ” I got a girl and she don't have to work, she can tell which
horse is gonna finish in first, some nights the painkillers make the pain even
worse”. I just want to meet these
people. If you get the chance check them
out.
The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
Like the Banshees, my favourite Damned album very often varies but Machine Gun Etiquette is my go to album. Bought with my Christmas money in December 1979 from a store in Wolverhampton it is bristling from start to finish with festive punk rock cheer. Fantastic three minute tunes such as Love Song, Anti Pope, Melody Lee, pretty much the whole album every so slightly offset by the epic Plan 9 Channel 7 and grand finale of Smash It Up parts 1&2. Influential to this day.
Public Image Ltd - Metal Box
Where do you start? Three 12" singles in a metal film style tin. A bass sound that could literally kick start a heart in the absence of a defibrillator. And Mr Lydon proving after the patchy First Issue album that there was a lot more to offer in the wake of the Pistols. The opener Albatross with it's incessant dub bass refrain seems like it's going to go on for ever but as it's 10 minutes something stumbles to a finish I just want to hear it again. Luckily the rest of the album keeps up the momentum with songs written about John's dying mum and another about a kidnap victim it's a sometimes stark listen but still sounds as fresh now as it did all those years ago. Play fucking loud.
Ramones - Ramones
Was going to go for something a little less obvious but fuck it, 14 songs in under 30 minutes. Great cover, great album. Don't talk about it, just listen to it!
The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
Like the Banshees, my favourite Damned album very often varies but Machine Gun Etiquette is my go to album. Bought with my Christmas money in December 1979 from a store in Wolverhampton it is bristling from start to finish with festive punk rock cheer. Fantastic three minute tunes such as Love Song, Anti Pope, Melody Lee, pretty much the whole album every so slightly offset by the epic Plan 9 Channel 7 and grand finale of Smash It Up parts 1&2. Influential to this day.
Public Image Ltd - Metal Box
Where do you start? Three 12" singles in a metal film style tin. A bass sound that could literally kick start a heart in the absence of a defibrillator. And Mr Lydon proving after the patchy First Issue album that there was a lot more to offer in the wake of the Pistols. The opener Albatross with it's incessant dub bass refrain seems like it's going to go on for ever but as it's 10 minutes something stumbles to a finish I just want to hear it again. Luckily the rest of the album keeps up the momentum with songs written about John's dying mum and another about a kidnap victim it's a sometimes stark listen but still sounds as fresh now as it did all those years ago. Play fucking loud.
Ramones - Ramones
Was going to go for something a little less obvious but fuck it, 14 songs in under 30 minutes. Great cover, great album. Don't talk about it, just listen to it!
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